Services Provided

Services are provided to individuals only; adults and children. Before you can be your best with others, you must be best for yourself.

Healing specialization includes healing the underlying causes of:

Depression

Anxiety

Panic attacks

Performance Anxiety and Difficulty Studying

Testing Anxiety

Phobias

Grief

The Emotional Effects of Physical and Emotional Abuse, no matter how long ago

Excessive Anger and Frustration

Self Injury

Low Self Esteem

Stress Relief

Post Traumatic Stress

Improvement of Physical Issues including high blood pressure and chronic pain

The entire healing process occurs in a comfortable and supportive environment. You will not be retraumated through ineffective traditional approaches that involve re-experiencing your painful history. It will also not be necessary to go through endless talk therapy rehashing every detail of your past.

What Is the Mind?

The other day a friend of mine told me I was out of my mind and that he had recently lost his and later that day my daughter changed hers. So what is this thing ~ called the Mind? You can't see it, most doctors and scientists cannot tell you where it is, although we now have scientific evidence to show it's in every cell of your body. Therefore, all of our thinking and feeling -- all the things that go on in our minds is going on in every cell of our bodies! It makes perfect sense then, that our thoughts and feelings can make us feel sick or feel good!

The mind is known by different names depending on which part we are talking about: the conscious or the unconscious.

For humans, the mind is not so much an entity as a communication and storage system, operating very much like a computer. The conscious portion of the mind is similar to the RAM (temporary) memory compartment of the computer. and the unconscious (permanent) memory compartment is similar to the hard disk or permanent memory of the computer.

How Does the Mind Work?

Like the computer, these two compartments are used to store and process information, generally in the form of our thoughts, in different ways. We are completely aware of the first area, our conscious mind. It's the part we use when we are awake and when we are talking and thinking. The information and processing in the second compartment is done outside our awareness level and therefore, we have no idea about what is happening in this area. It is therefore known as the unconscious or subconscious. Both parts of the mind have very separate and important responsibilities.

We use analytical thinking to determine the correctness or acceptability of incoming information. Rational thinking gives us a reason for what we do and feel. Neither rational or analytical thinking needs to have any factual basis and it usually doesn't. As long as we have some reason for why we do what we do, that's all we need.

Will power is a somewhat confusing subject and in reality, as a part of the conscious and therefore only "temporary", it has no real impact for us. Temporary memory is our way of storing the information we need at any given moment. If you need to dial your mother's phone number, assuming you know the number, the number moves from permanent storage (explained later) into your temporary memory and will stay there as long as you need it and when you're done, just returns to permanent storage.

The last and most important function of the conscious mind is the critical faculty and guard to the unconscious. This part of the conscious decides to accept or not accept information. It makes it's determinations based on what is already stored in the unconscious to support or reject new information or beliefs. This critical faculty is inherently lazy and is therefore inclined to permit negative information through before positive information.

The UNCONSCIOUS mind is far more complex. It is the place that your mother's phone number went to when you were through with it. The unconscious has many important responsibilities. It controls and monitors all your bodily functions plus:
1. Permanent Memory Storage
2. Maintenance of Your Habits
3. Storage of Your Emotions
4. Self Preservation (survival instinct) and
5. Storage of your belief systems ("I am smart, stupid, good, bad, successful, worthwhile, etc.)

Your unconscious mind holds all the memories and associated emotions that you've ever experienced. As very young children, nearly everything goes directly into the unconscious and becomes permanent because your CRITICAL FACULTY OR GUARD IS UNDEVELOPED. For instance, as an adult, you know your colors so that if someone directs you to a wall painted green and tells you to look at this "red" wall, you know that makes no sense and you do NOT now believe the wall is red. However, if you're only two years old and you haven't yet learned your colors and someone directs your attention to a wall painted green, calling it red, your response would be a simple okay. This is because your critical factor or faculty has not yet been developed for your colors.

Therefore, as little children, we are like sponges absorbing and holding onto all information that comes to us. Unfortunately, much of that information is misunderstood, misinterpreted, maybe not even meant for us in the first place (we overheard it) and often comes from inexperienced, well-meaning parents. Sometimes it comes from poorly informed grandparents, teachers and unkind siblings, neighbors, or playmates. If this negative information is not immediately and strongly corrected, it becomes a permanent part of us with it's unconscious message affecting us throughout our lives. It is these experiences, memories, information and misinformation that are the basis to what we believe about ourselves and it is these beliefs which like a Windows 98 operating system function unconsciously in our background directing our mind and body system to create health, happiness and success or the opposite! An experienced clinician who knows how to go right to the source of your negative and destructive information and the resulting beliefs can rapidly correct them.

Clinical Hypnotherapy is the only way to access the unconscious, the key to our Psychoneuroimmunology System and EMT makes it a faster, more comfortable process.

PSYCHONEUROIMMUNOLOGY (PNI) – The only real road to healing!

It has been determined that the underlying source of nearly ALL emotional and physiological health is based on an individual's level of self esteem. Your self esteem or notion of worthiness to be happy, healthy, loved, etc. is stored on a cellular level and now recognized as the Psychoneuroimmunology (PNI) System which functions as an unconscious operating system affecting all phases of our emotion health, physiological health and overall productive functioning in life.

An individual's self esteem is largely developed during the first five years of life and is the result of one's interpretation and misinterpretation of environmental surroundings and events. The individual who has developed a healthy self esteem can, through trauma, experience the destruction or deterioration of self esteem which manifests or triggers a wide range of emotional and physiological symptoms including anxiety, depression, panic attacks, fears and phobias, nightmares, flashbacks, chronic pain and illness-- the gamut of symptoms associated with post-traumatic stress disorder. The clinical community, however, largely ignores the more subtle degradation of the individual's self esteem, also a form of PTSD. Indeed, it can be shown that all forms emotional and physiological disturbances originate from some form of post-traumatic stress.

Clinical Hypnotherapy and in particular, Transpersonal Clinical Hypnotherapy is the only means to access the unconscious which the effects are trauma are stored and to correct the destructive beliefs and symptoms which are developed.

CLINICAL HYPNOTHERAPY

Mind-Body science has been the core process of Clinical Hypnotherapy long before it's practitioners were aware of the clinical science behind the mechanism they were using. The entertainment and publishing industry with spy thrillers, intrigue, stage shows and mystery novels have all but destroyed the powerful healing image so rightfully deserved by this technique.

In order to bypass the erroneous fears of the general public, practitioners have developed a multitude of hypnosis "derivatives" including guided imagery, biofeedback, meditation, etc. Not until Dr. Herbert Benson of Harvard Medical School introduced his "Relaxation Response", another minor derivative of hypnosis, has the technique of Mind-Body medicine achieved legitimacy.

Dr. Benson created what the underfinanced hypnosis industry never could: mainstream clinical data. Although using only a small portion of the capabilities of Clinical Hypnotherapy, Dr. Benson's clinical findings were nothing less than astounding. Particularly since it was all premeditated on just relaxation.

The pressure of the public, increasingly dissatisfied with the ineffectiveness and expense of medication which only covers up symptoms, almost never heals anything, and brings with it a whole host of side effects more dangerous than the condition it is supposed to correct; triggered the National Institutes of Health creation of a Mind-Body Research Department which started with a $10 million grant about five years ago.

Scientists discovered and revealed the key to Mind-Body Science: that every cell containing neuropeptides (most of our cells) contains a "mind" and communicates with other cells through the release of chemical neurotransmitters. With this revelation, they were finally able to scientifically substantiate why the thoughts and beliefs cycling in our minds, translate into feelings and physical responses ranging from anxiety to depression and a suppressed immune system to actual pain and disease.

It was therefore deduced that in order to heal disease, we must heal the causes of disease: the destructive beliefs affecting our expectations stored in the unconscious department of our mind cells. You might be saying to yourself that this new science means we should then just be able to"think" ourselves well – which obviously doesn't work. It is possible IF you are thinking with the right department of your mind. Most of our "aware" thinking occurs in the conscious which has NO ability to affect change and instead keeps us locked in our current state. The only way to bypass the conscious and reach the unconscious to make corrections is through the technique of hypnosis – no matter what you want to call it.

To avoid the public's negative baggage with this term, and to boost scientists' ownership of this new "science", scientists developed their own term for "their new findings": psychoneuroimmunology (PNI). Broken down, mind (psycho), communications (neuro) and immune system (immunology), the term encompasses their "new" understanding. The mind influences the immune system to effect our overall health.

That which is cycling around in your unconscious mind - that's right "unconscious"-- you are not aware of it except by its results; directly effects the physiology of your body. The single most important thing cycling around in your unconscious mind is the belief you developed while growing up of whether or not you deserve to be happy, healthy, and successful. Your core belief system functions as YOUR operating system just like Windows–in the background--runs your computer. In your computer, once it boots up, you have no concept of what's going on with Windows unless something goes wrong with the program you are using. Similarly, we don't consciously know what is running in OUR operating system, except by the external results. Are you generally happy? Are you generally healthy? Are you generally successful? Whatever your answer, it is based on YOUR internal operating system's beliefs.

Positive beliefs become deconstructed through real or perceived traumatic events and consistent negative input. The deconstruction process is also addressed in the TRAUMA section. The unconscious, where we hold our beliefs, when directly accessed can easily be rehabilitated because the unconscious cannot tell the difference between reality and vividly imagined (which must include the associated emotions) scenarios. But even this will seem to be an oversimplification for most individuals. The best way to understand how we function to be well or ill, happy or not, is to The Institute's seminar on this subject.

1Most scientists and practitioners use the term "subconscious", however, "unconscious" is more accurate.

CLINICAL FINDINGS

Clinical Findings of The Mind/Body Visualization Approach* from the Center for Training in Mind/Body Medicine,
HARVARD MEDICAL SCHOOL &
DEACONESS HOSPITAL, Boston, MA

Eighty percent of hypertensive patients have lowered blood pressure and decreased medications -16 percent are able to discontinue all of their medications. These results lasted at least three years. Journal of Cardiopulmonary Rehabilitation, Volume 9, pages 316-324, 1989

Women with severe PMS have a 57 percent reduction in physical and psychological symptoms.Obstetrics and Gynecology, Volume 75, pages 649-655, April 1990

Infertile women have a 34 percent conception rate, (compared to only 20 percent with in vitro fertilization), and decreased levels of depression, anxiety and anger. Fertility and Sterility, Volume 58, pages 144-147, 1992

High school students exposed to a relaxation response-based curriculum significantly increased their self-esteem. The Journal of Research and Development in Education, Volume 27, pages 226-231 , 1994

*Visualization, as is used at the Center, is an initial stage to the natural state of hypnosis.

TRAUMA

Trauma -- most of us have experienced some. Who hasn't been in a car accident, a house fire, been fired from a job, been sued, lost a loved one or even a beloved pet, been mugged? Who hasn't been inadvertantly given repeated negative messages like "you're stupid," "you're a failure," "you're too fat," "you're clumsy," "you'll never amount to anything?"

And there are the really bad traumas like child abuse, rape, war, bombings, devastating tornados and hurricanes .... floods. We're told that these are the tough life experiences that toughen us up ... make us stronger. Well, they're supposed to, but it doesn't necessarily happen automatically. We do become stronger, but not just by going through a bad experience, but by conquering it.

Some individuals are fortunate enough to accomplish this on their own in a relatively short period of time. Many have successfully or unsuccessfully attempted months and years of traditional therapy. The important thing is to process our traumas to the point where a healthy, positive attitude and outlook on life develops.

Unfortunately, many never get to that point. For some, a traumatic experience can feel so overwhelming that the response is to try to ignore it and force yourself to "forget about it." Although this may seem like a good idea, temporarily appearing to provide relief, nothing has been accomplished inside. The thoughts, feelings, and images related to the traumatic event continue to be intense and powerful. This can lead to symptoms which include anxiety, depression, stress, anger, depression, repetitively intrusive thoughts and images, nightmares, apathy and an inability to function. Many experts now realize that the vast majority of emotional and even physical problems are symptoms of traumas that have not been effectively processed.

Not everybody who has been traumatized develops post-traumatic stress syndrome. But many notice changes they don't like. This is generally an indication that the traumatic memory was not properly worked through, but has become "stuck". Without appropriate help, this condition can last indefinitely. In the past, with traditional approaches, the condition may remain permanent. Many trauma victims have been told that they simply have to learn to live with their debilitating memories and the symptoms that result.

But there is good news. There is a new approach that helps people to quickly work through a traumatic memory, often in one or two sessions! The method is called "eye movement therapy" or EMT.

Advanced Eye Movement Therapy

AEMT is based on the unconscious beliefs we hold.

In conjunction with Clinical Hypnotherapy, Advanced Eye Movement Therapy (AEMT) is an advanced form of the internationally acclaimed approach (EMDR) to facilitate healing the underlying causes of post-traumatic stress, anxiety and depression and so much more.

The implementation of various eye movements to release emotions actually began over 1000 years ago with Buddhist monks who used the technique to improve their meditation by clearing their minds and creating a deep sense of well-being.

After the Oklahoma City bombing, the FBI selected a now inferior form of eye movement (EMT) techniques, known as EMDR as the treatment for the survivors, their families and rescue workers. Teams of EMDR Clinicians currently travel around the world helping victims of war and disaster. Over 40,000 clinicians have been trained in various levels of EMDR but only a handful enjoy the advanced training acquired by Ms. Ritter.

Ms. Ritter has developed a superior delivery system that substantially improves mainstream EMDR.

Clinical Hypnotherapy, approved by the American Medical Association in 1958, completes the rapid healing process and achieves results not available through traditional talk and medication routes.

Theresa Ritter, CCH, AEMT and TherapySites expressly disclaim all warranties and responsibilities of any kind, whether express or implied, for the accuracy or reliability of the content of any information contained in this site, and for the suitability, results, effectiveness or fitness for any particular purpose of the content. You are solely responsible for your use or reliance on such information and any foreseeable or unforeseeable consequences arising out of such use or reliance. In no event will Theresa Ritter, CCH, AEMT or TherapySites be liable for any damages resulting from the use of or inability to use, the content, whether based on warranty, contract, tort or other legal theory, and whether or not Theresa Ritter, CCH, AEMT or TherapySites is advised of the possibility of such damages. In no event will Theresa Ritter, CCH, AEMT's and TherapySites's aggregate liability exceed U.S. $100.